sharing the becoming and growth of our first child; an experiential walkthrough of the sometimes daunting, but oftentimes delightful and gratifying journey of childbirth and parenthood; a personal discovery of the miracle of life and the tenderness of being;

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Today Ade and myself discovered that our unborn child's heartbeat had stopped at about 8.5 weeks. It is heartwrenching, but somehow with the experience of a blighted ovum before (refer to early posts) and the gift of our now only son, we feel comforted and prepared for this.

Nothing of course prepares anyone for a whisper of life so delicate yet to be snuffed out so quickly. I wouldn't say this was unexpected. At 6.5 weeks, we found that the amniotic sac was small compared to the yolk sac, and our gynae raised concerns on the health of this pregnancy.

Back then, despite clinical advice that it wouldn't do much, and reading several reports online that it does help, ade started drinking at least 1.5 times as much water as she normally would, averaging 14 glasses/day.

Just last Saturday, our scan at 8 weeks 2 days showed not just a small foetus, but a vaguely unclear form compared to what should have been. Amniotic fluid didn't restore to normal levels, but it looked to us to have improved a teeny bit. However, the strong sounding heartbeat gave us the false psychological affirmation that our little one could have been a fighter and pushed through Our gynae pointed to 3 factors that suggested the contrary.

1 - absolute size was small (at 8wks 2d should have been about 15mm instead of 11mm)2 - rate of growth was slowing, suggesting eventual stop3 - shape wasn't distinct as it should be, suggesting complications should baby have survived this phase.

All Life is precious. We are reminded once again, that we are all lucky survivors, and should treasure the one/ones that we already have.